Take a lamb's head and lights; open the jaws of the head, and wash them thoroughly; put them in a pot with some beef-stock, made with three quarts of water, and two pounds of shin of beef, strained; boil very slowly for an hour; wash and string two or three good handfuls of spinach (or spinage); put it in twenty minutes before serving; add a little parsley, and one or two onions, a short time before it comes off the fire; season with pepper and salt, and serve all together in a tureen.
"This favourite Scotch dish is generally made with the liquor meat has been boiled in.
"Put half a pint of oatmeal into a porringer with a little salt, if there be not enough in the broth, of which add as much as will mix it to the consistence of hasty-pudding, or a little thicker; lastly, take a little of the fat that swims on the broth, and put it on the crowdie, and eat it in the same way as hasty-pudding."
_Obs._--This Scotsman's dish is easily prepared at very little expense, and is pleasant-tasted and nutritious. To dress a haggies, see No. 488*, and Minced Collops, following it.
N.B. For various methods of making and flavouring oatmeal gruel, see No. 572.
Scrape and wash half a dozen large carrots; peel off the red outside (which is the only part used for this soup); put it into a gallon stew-pan, with one head of celery, and an onion, cut into thin pieces; take two quarts of beef, veal, or mutton broth, or if you have any cold roast-beef bones (or liquor, in which mutton or beef has been boiled), you may make very good broth for this soup: when you have put the broth to the roots, cover the stew-pan close, and set it on a slow stove for two hours and a half, when the carrots will be soft enough (some cooks put in a tea-cupful of bread-crumbs); boil for two or three minutes; rub it through a tamis, or hair-sieve, with a wooden spoon, and add as much broth as will make it a proper thickness, _i. e._ almost as thick as pease soup: put it into a clean stew-pan; make it hot; season it with a little salt, and send it up with some toasted bread, cut into pieces half an inch square. Some put it into the soup; but the best way is to send it up on a plate, as a side-dish.
_Obs._ This is neither expensive nor troublesome to prepare. In the kitchens of some opulent epicures, to make this soup make a little stronger impression on the gustatory organs of "grands gourmands," the celery and onions are sliced, and fried in butter of a light brown, the soup is poured into the stew-pan to them, and all is boiled up together. But this must be done very carefully with butter, or very nicely clarified fat; and the "grand cuisinier" adds spices, &c. "_ad libitum_."